Image-of-the-Day by Subject

Image-of-the-Day by Subject

Dragonflies & Damselflies Page 2

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Some more Odonata (Dragonfly like insect) today and at least a couple more alternate days. This female Banded Demoiselle (a larger than average damselfly) is quite different to the male which is blue and actually HAS got bands on his wings. Hope to bring you her 'husband' if we can catch him for some photos!

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Detail of the head - love the iridescence.

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The Banded Demoiselle damselfly female doesn't have the bands on the wings but makes up for it with the glorious green and gold abdomen.

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The female Banded Demoiselle does not have the band on her wings that her mate does. The sheen on the abdomen is exquisite with a greener tinge than the males. In the recent warm days a 25m grass strip between hedges has become a wonderland of these beauties - about 4 males and a couple of females flutter gently around you as you walk slowly along the path.

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The edges of the 4 wings are so nearly aligned that they almost look like shadows.

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The Banded Demoiselle is quite one of the most beautiful damselflies we know of. This is the male - the female has no band on different coloured wings. See in a few days.

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The first couple of warm days at last brought out the Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselfies).
This Banded Demoiselle damselfly male flying along in all his glory.

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Last year we glimpsed what might be a new species here, and this year we have the confirmation of the Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly. This is the male - we have only glimpsed females so far. This insect requires running water for laying eggs, and we will be trying to work out where they are breeding off our site. But the corner we find them is also 'midge corner' and we think they visit for 'eat-on-the-hedge' meals.

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A freshly emerged male Blue-tailed Damselfly not yet in adult colour.

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This Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonfly obliged with just this one flight across the camera field

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This Broad bodied Chaser is one of the unmistakable dragonflies. Only the male of this species has the blue pruinescence - a powdery blue coating that gets patchy over the weeks that the insect lives.

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We include this static shot taken later to show the wonderful powder blue abdomen (and it really is powdery and gets worn off with 'living'). The blue is a strictly male feature - the female is orange and not a powder.

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Our first Dragonfly (as opposed to Damselfly) sighting this year is a Broad-Bodied Chaser female (actually seen briefly on 9 May 2011). We think this is the first sighting in Buckinghamshire this year

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A few minutes earlier 'grabbing' an image before going back to the house for the 'macro' kit, we caught this view of the abdomen's translucence.

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This beautiful Broad-Bodied Chaser Dragonfly was using the withering flag iris as a vantage point - it has no interest in pollen or nectar. Shortly afterward an orange female flew by and he flew off after her.
The blue back (on the males only) is powdery and bright in Ultraviolet. If you are interested see Dragonflies in Ultraviolet from part way down & the top item on the page that follows. They are NOT dead - just cold, and like all the others flew off fine after warming in the sunshine.

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This is the first dragonfly we have seen here, with beautiful powder blue (and powdery texture) abdomen. It has a wingspan of about 7cm.

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After the indoor shoot we took her out for release and took some more studies in sunlight until she flew off. This detail is looking from the top of the head (eyes at the bottom) down the face at the top.
We estimated the number of eye segments at 30,000, couldn't believe it, but then found a reference to an exact count for the 'American Common Green Darner' at 28,672 in an excellent UK book by Steve Brooks ISBN 0-953-13990-5 page 8.
The cells do not form images (unlike the ridiculous Hollywood and nature documentary illustrations) so that IS the resolution - about 10% of a 'VGA' (640x480) colour monitor but of course wonderfully sensitive to movement, colour vision including UV, and very robust. According to the book, 3 additional eyes in a triangle at the top are very sensitive to light and are directly used for orientation in flight.

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This Brown Hawker Dragonfly female was having great time feeding on midges - you can see one here hanging out of the bottom of her mouth.

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This is a Brown Hawker dragonfly female flapping her wings as she clambered up a hawthorn twig during a photo-shoot to photograph her in flight (but the flight images didn't capture the 3-D feel).

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